Diuron as a pre-sowing herbicide for cotton in the Ord River Valley

1967 ◽  
Vol 7 (29) ◽  
pp. 572 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rijn PJ van

When cotton is sown in the middle of the wet season on the Ord River Valley, the formation or ridges and the control of weeds present major problems. One solution would be to complete the final land preparation, including the formation of the ridges, at the end of the dry season (November), and to spray with a herbicide, such as diuron, at the end of the dry or at the onset of the wet season. Four experiments concerned with this system are described. When diuron at 1 1/2-2 lb active ingredient an acre was applied during the dry season or at the beginning of the wet, cotton sown two weeks after spraying was not damaged and weeds were controlled throughout the growing season. When diuron was applied later on in the wet season (January-February), cotton could not be sown without seedling damage until approximately six weeks after spraying. Residues from annual applications of pre-sowing diuron to the same area did not accumulate fast enough to damage subsequent cotton crops.


1964 ◽  
Vol 4 (15) ◽  
pp. 321
Author(s):  
Rijn PJ van

Between 1960 and 1963, four preliminary experiments on herbicides for cotton were carried out at Kimberley Research Station. Diuron, applied pre-emergence at rates of 1/2-1 lb an acre active ingredient (a. i.), and dicryl, applied seven to ten days after emergence at rates of 3-6 lb an acre a. i., gave satisfactory weed control. Diuron, because of its longer residual action (six weeks in early wet season, two months or more in late wet and early dry season) is preferred, and is recommended as the standard herbicidal treatment for Ord River cotton crops.



1992 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 241 ◽  
Author(s):  
JJ Mott ◽  
MM Ludlow ◽  
JH Richards ◽  
AD Parsons

The close correlation between grazing-induced mortality and major climatic patterns in Australian savannas, led us to the hypothesis that moisture conditions during the dry, non-growing season could affect sensitivity to grazing in the subsequent growing season. Using three widespread savanna species (Themeda triandra, Heteropogon contortus and Panicum maximum), this hypothesis was tested experimentally and the mechanisms controlling this response examined and quantified. In T. triandra drought during the dry season led to major mortality in defoliated plants in the next growing season. This mortality was caused by a synchrony of tillering at the commencement of the wet season, leaving few buds for replacement once parent tillers were killed by defoliation. T. triandra was also the most sensitive species to defoliation. This sensitivity was due to the poor ability of the plant to maintain positive carbon gain after defoliation. Several factors contributed to this poor ability, including: low total photosynthetic rate, low specific leaf area, and a large proportion of sheath material with poor photosynthetic capacity remaining after cutting. Both H. contortus and P. maximum growing under irrigated and fertilized conditions did not display any effects of previous moisture treatments when defoliated during the next wet season and were much less sensitive to defoliation than T. triandra.



2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 1797-1808 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. L. Kutsch ◽  
N. Hanan ◽  
B. Scholes ◽  
I. McHugh ◽  
W. Kubheka ◽  
...  

Abstract. The principal mechanisms that connect carbon fluxes with water relations in savanna ecosystems were studied by using eddy covariance method in a savanna ecosystem at Kruger National Park, South Africa. Since the annual drought and rewetting cycle is a major factor influencing the function of savanna ecosystems, this work focused on the close inter-connection between water relations and carbon fluxes. Data from a nine-month measuring campaign lasting from the early wet season to the late dry season were used. Total ecosystem respiration showed highest values at the onset of the growing season, a slightly lower plateau during the main part of the growing season and a continuous decrease during the transition towards the dry season. The regulation of canopy conductance was changed in two ways: changes due to phenology during the course of the growing season and short-term acclimation to soil water conditions. The most constant parameter was water use efficiency that was influenced by VPD during the day but the VPD response curve of water usage did change only slightly during the course of the growing season and decreased by about 30% during the transition from wet to dry season. The regulation of canopy conductance and photosynthetic capacity were closely related. This observation meets recent leaf-level findings that stomatal closure triggers down-regulation of Rubisco during drought. Our results may show the effects of these processes on the ecosystem scale.



1968 ◽  
Vol 8 (34) ◽  
pp. 620 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rijn PJ van

Germination tests on seeds of the predominant weeds in the irrigated cotton area of the Ord River valley, W.A., were carried out at different times at varying temperatures in dark germination chambers and at fluctuating temperatures under dark conditions in the glasshouse. Since many of the weed seeds failed to germinate at the time of conducting the experiments, the seed coats were treated either mechanically or with concentrated sulphuric acid. The experiments show that the range of temperatures throughout the year in the Ord valley is such that germination of most of the predominant weeds recorded in irrigated cotton during the wet season could also be expected in irrigated crops during the dry season. It became clear that temperature-germination relations alone are not sufficient to explain the field occurrence of the weeds.



2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 2197-2235 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. L. Kutsch ◽  
N. Hanan ◽  
R. J. Scholes ◽  
I. McHugh ◽  
W. Kubheka ◽  
...  

Abstract. The principal mechanisms that connect carbon fluxes with water relations in savanna ecosystems were studied by using eddy covariance in a savanna ecosystem at Kruger National Park, South Africa. Since the annual drought and rewetting cycle is a major factor influencing the function of savanna ecosystems, this work focused on the close inter-connection between water relations and carbon fluxes. Data from a nine-month measuring campaign lasting from the early wet season to the late dry season were used. Total ecosystem respiration showed highest values at the onset of the growing season, a slightly lower plateau during the main part of the growing season and a continuous decrease during the transition towards the dry season. The regulation of canopy conductance was changed in two ways: changes due to phenology during the course of the growing season and short-term acclimation to soil water conditions. The most constant parameter was water use efficiency that was influenced by VPD during the day but the VPD response curve of water usage did change only slightly during the course of the growing season and decreased by about 30% during the transition from wet to dry season. The regulation of canopy conductance and photosynthetic capacity were closely related. This observation meets recent leaf-level findings that stomatal closure triggers down-regulation of Rubisco during drought. Our results may show the effects of these processes on the ecosystem scale.



1981 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 67 ◽  
Author(s):  
TJ Hall

The nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations of tops of the most common species at one site on the Dichanthium fecundum. Eulalla fulva grasslands of north-west Queensland were determined. The eight major grasses were sampled between 13 and 16 times over three consecutive dry seasons and three times during the growing season. Selected minor grasses and forbs were sampled on 30 occasions in both seasons over six years. Chrysopogon fallax and Iseilema spp. declined in phosphorus concentration during the dry season while the other major grasses remained constant. The nitrogen concentration of these two grasses and of Astrebla elymoides, A. squarrosa, D. fecundum and Sorghum australiense declined while that of E. fulra and Aristida latifolia was constant during the dry season. Both species of Astrebla had the highest concentrations of the two nutrients. The minor gasses had highest nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations in December at the start of the wet season and rapid declines in both nutrients occurred by March. These species were not intensively sampled during the dry season. The forbs had higher nutriant concentrations than grasses. The mean phosphorus concentration of major grasses in the dry season was highest (0.095%) in 1973 and lowest (0.065%) in 1974 following an abnormally wet summer. There was no difference in mean nitrogen concentration between years. It was 0.61% for the three dry seasons combined. The implications of these data for animal production are discussed.



1964 ◽  
Vol 4 (15) ◽  
pp. 316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rijn PJ van

Three herbicides, CIPC (Isopropyl-N-(3-chloropheny1)-carbamate) EPTC (Ethyl-NN-dipropylthiol- carbamate) and Stam F-34 (3,4-Dichloropropionanilide), were tested for the control of barnyard grasses, Echinochloa colonum (L.) Link and Echinochloa crus-galli (L.) Beauv., in rice at Kimberley Research Station. The herbicides were tested at different rates and times of application on land lightly and heavily infested with weeds in crops of dry season rice, japonica variety Caloro, and wet season rice indica variety Meli No. 2 or Sircna. CIPC gave good control of weeds but did not increase crop yield ; furthermore, it was unreliable in its action and in one experiment reduced crop yield. EPTC, at 1 lb an acre active ingredient applied pre-sowing, gave good control of weeds but no increases in crop yield. Stam F-34, at 3-6 lb an acre active ingredient applied two to three weeks after crop emergence, gave good control of weeds in both wet and dry season rice and, as a result, crop yields increased.



1985 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 455-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. V. Goodchild

ABSTRACTAn abrupt fall in live weight of grazing cattle occurs at the beginning of the growing season in the seasonally dry tropics. In an experiment with grazing crossbred bulls in central Tanzania designed to monitor changes in gut fill, 16 were slaughtered in the dry season and 14 in the early wet season. Bulls were measured and weighed before, and weighed after, a 20-h fast and then slaughtered. Gut fill was measured and empty body weight (EBW) calculated.During fasting, the ratio gut fill/EBW fell from 0·291 to 0·217 in the dry season and from 0·207 to 0·119 in the wet season. Heart girth/EBW1/3 was 0·2577 and 0·2567 m/kg1/3 in the dry and wet seasons respectively.It was concluded that live weight before or after fasting is seriously affected by season and can give biased predictions of EBW change. On the other hand, heart girth is little affected by season and can be used to monitor relative increases or decreases of EBW within animals.



2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenz Hänchen ◽  
Cornelia Klein ◽  
Fabien Maussion ◽  
Wolfgang Gurgiser ◽  
Pierluigi Calanca ◽  
...  

Abstract. In the semi-arid Peruvian Andes, the growing season is mostly determined by the timing of the onset and retreat of the wet season, to which annual crop yields are highly sensitive. Recently, local farmers in the Rio Santa basin (RSB) reported decreasing predictability of the onset of the rainy season and further challenges related to changes in rainfall characteristics. Previous studies based on time series of local rain gauges however, did not find any significant changes in either the timing or intensity of the wet season. Both in-situ and satellite rainfall data for the region lack the necessary spatial resolution to capture the highly variable rainfall distribution typical for complex terrain, and are often questionable in terms of quality and temporal consistency. To date, there remains considerable uncertainty in the RSB regarding hydrological changes over the last decades. In this study, we overcome this limitation by exploiting satellite-derived information on vegetation greenness to reveal a robust and highly resolved picture of recent changes in rainfall and vegetation phenology across the region: As the semi-arid climate causes water availability (i.e. precipitation) to be the key limiting factor for plant growth, patterns of precipitation occurrence and the seasonality of vegetation indices (VIs) are tightly coupled. Therefore, VIs can serve as an integrated proxy of rainfall. By combining MODIS Aqua and Terra VIs for 2000–2020 and several datasets of precipitation, we explore recent spatio-temporal changes in vegetation and water availability. Furthermore, we examine their links to El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). While different rainfall datasets tend to be incoherent in the period of observation, we find significant greening over the majority of the RSB domain in VI data, particularly pronounced during the dry season (Austral winter). This indicates an overall increase of plant available water over time. The rainy season onset and consequently the start of the growing season (SOS) exhibits high inter-annual variability and dominates the growing season length (LOS). The end of the growing season (EOS) is significantly delayed in the analysis which matches the observed dry-season greening. By partitioning the results into periods of three stages of ENSO (neutral, Niño, Niña), we find an earlier SOS and an overall increased season length in years associated with El Niño. However, the appearance of Niño/Niña events during the analysed period cannot explain the observed greening and delayed EOS. While our study could not corroborate anecdotal evidence for recent changes in the SOS, we confirm that the SOS is highly variable and conclude that rainfed farming in the RSB would profit from future efforts being directed towards improving medium-range forecasts of the rainy season onset.



BMC Genomics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xue Zhu ◽  
Jiyue Qin ◽  
Chongyang Tan ◽  
Kang Ning

Abstract Background Most studies investigating human gut microbiome dynamics are conducted on humans living in an urban setting. However, few studies have researched the gut microbiome of the populations living traditional lifestyles. These understudied populations are arguably better subjects in answering human-gut microbiome evolution because of their lower exposure to antibiotics and higher dependence on natural resources. Hadza hunter-gatherers in Tanzania have exhibited high biodiversity and seasonal patterns in their gut microbiome composition at the family level, where some taxa disappear in one season and reappear later. Such seasonal changes have been profiled, but the nucleotide changes remain unexplored at the genome level. Thus, it is still elusive how microbial communities change with seasonal changes at the genome level. Results In this study, we performed a strain-level single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis on 40 Hadza fecal metagenome samples spanning three seasons. With more SNP presented in the wet season, eight prevalent species have significant SNP enrichment with the increasing number of SNP calling by VarScan2, among which only three species have relatively high abundances. Eighty-three genes have the most SNP distributions between the wet season and dry season. Many of these genes are derived from Ruminococcus obeum, and mainly participated in metabolic pathways including carbon metabolism, pyruvate metabolism, and glycolysis. Conclusions Eight prevalent species have significant SNP enrichments with the increasing number of SNP, among which only Eubacterium biforme, Eubacterium hallii and Ruminococcus obeum have relatively high species abundances. Many genes in the microbiomes also presented characteristic SNP distributions between the wet season and the dry season. This implies that the seasonal changes might indirectly impact the mutation patterns for specific species and functions for the gut microbiome of the population that lives in traditional lifestyles through changing the diet in wet and dry seasons, indicating the role of these variants in these species’ adaptation to the changing environment and diets.



Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document